Outsiders

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Jesus said, “There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
— Luke 4. 27-30

When Jesus preached his message of the universal inclusiveness of God's love—that God would heal a pagan foreigner—those who wanted “insiders” and “outsiders” were threatened. So those who moments before had approved of Jesus as one of their own quickly made him into an outsider.

We all need to feel that we Belong and that the Universe approves of us. And it's natural (original, actually: original sin) to believe that there's a reason for that, not just God's grace. It's hard not to suppose there's something about us that makes us more worthy than others. Of course someone who seems less worthy messes up our system and threatens our security. So we compare. We don't just judge and oppose those who threaten our sense of belonging and approval, we also want to get them out of our way: to eliminate them. Slamming the door on someone, cutting off a relationship, executing someone, genocide—they all come from the same spirit.

We all have a different set of people that we want to drive out of town: gays or gay-bashers, terrorists or corrupt CEOs, the people who annoy or offend us. But the impulse is the same. As we resist evil and injustice the real challenge is to stay in relationship with the people we want to eliminate. To bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. This doesn't mean staying in an abusive relationship. But it does mean staying in the human family, and letting others, even the demon-possessed, stay here, too. There is always Christ in the ones we want to reject. And he always slips through the midst of us and goes on his way.

As Jesus points out, it's the outsiders God blesses first.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Absolute love

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you… and you will be children of the Most High; for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Mother is merciful.
— Luke 6. 27-28, 35-36

God, I am your beloved,
whom you love absolutely and perfectly.
No matter how good or bad I am , you love me wholly.
Help me to trust in your love,
your perfect, absolute, infinite love for me,
to trust that no matter what happens
I know that I am beloved.
Help me to love with your love,
love that is absolute and not conditional.
Give me the courage to love, the wisdom,
the freedom, the strength of heart.
Help me to surrender every desire but to love,
every wish to judge, to punish, to prevail.

God, I hold before you those whom I find it hard to bless.
They are your beloved, too, no matter what. Bless them.
Grant them healing, forgiveness and wholeness of life.
May the blessing you shower upon them
be the blessing you grant to me.
Amen.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

One body

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Now you are the body of Christ
and individually members of it.
— 1 Corinthians 12.27

We are not separate things, but all parts of one living Being.
We are no more separate than the fingers on a hand,
the notes in a chord, the words in a sentence,
the flavors in a gourmet dish, the cells in a body.
We are part of one another; we are each other in different ways.
There is one body, and we are all it.

We serve the poor because they are us.
We love the stranger because in them we know ourselves.
We side with the oppressed because they hold our wisdom.
We honor those who are different because they complete us.
We respect those who horrify us, for they are within us.
We bring the Other to our table: it is theirs, for we are theirs.
We include them in our compassion, for we include them.

The Christ that is in you is not separate from the Christ
in the unclean and lepers and drug addicts and terrorists.
Your choosing may be different, but the Spirit is One.
You are not the One, but you are in the One.

This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity, that in all there is One.
There is One of us, and the oneness, the One, is Holy.





Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve



_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

What the doctor heard

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


You sit on the paper rolled out on the doctor’s bench.
With her stethoscope she listens at your back.
She pauses, stills, leans closer.
She comes around and listens at the front.
Her eyes widen.
She sits, staring into the distance.
“What did you hear?” you ask. She is silent.
“The voice of God,”
she says, and returns to her silence.




______________________

Weather Report

Partially spoken today
with periods of clearing,
as the Word, in its continual flow,
at times condenses around
and within us.
Fifty percent chance of participation.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Burdens

Dearly Beloved,


Grace and Peace to you.



I shake mounded snow from the branches
I walk beneath, and they rise
from their burden of beauty, but most
in these woods are happy to bow
under the weight of the blessing
bestowed upon them in darkness
and brilliant now in the morning.
The sun will quietly bear
its bundle among the branches
that waited all through the night,
until, embraced in its beams,
they are patiently, softly unbound
and rise up into the light.





Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve



_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Compassion for the poor

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and peace to you.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because God has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
— Luke 4. 18-19


The radical message in scripture is not only that God has an intense care for the poor and powerless, but that the reason for this is that God is among them. God does not use power by domination, coercion and control; God is the quiet power within and beneath that raises up, gives life and resurrects. The God revealed in the crucified and risen Christ is a God who is poor and vulnerable, whose power is the power of no power. God is not Pilate and Herod; God is Christ. God is at the bottom of the heap, not the top. God is among the poor and lonely, the rejected, the powerless.

Our care for the poor does not come from guilt, or a sense of requirement, but mindfulness that God comes to us in poverty. We encounter God by serving and honoring those who are poor, and especially in experiencing our own poverty. “Compassion” literally means to “feel with.” Our care for the poor is not pity for people less fortunate than us, but sharing life with people who are just like us. For we have nothing with which to pay for our lives; we are utterly dependent on God's grace, not our own abilities; we are captive to our own fears and desires, bound up in oppressive and exploitative social and political systems, and blind to the truth; we lack courage, trust and generosity; we are powerless to control the world. If we imagine ourselves standing in Judgment, we know we are poor. And God is compassionate and merciful, for God is among the poor.

So in our poverty we extend God's compassion for all who suffer. You don't have to accomplish great things. Just hold the poor in your heart, and act in compassion. Let this question guide you: Is my life good news to the poor? Does my living proclaim freedom to people who are bound up? Do I help people see, do I shed light in someone's darkness? Do my thoughts and actions honor and serve those who are poor and powerless, abused or exploited, rejected or forgotten? Pray that by God's grace in you, the way that you think, pray and act may give others hope and freedom.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________

Copyright © 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

I am a man

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


In the Sanitation Workers' Strike of 1968 in Memphis, the African American demonstrators carried placards that read simply, “I am a man.” It seems obvious— but it was news to the city: that they were human beings worthy of respect. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that we celebrate today is the heart of both social justice and contemplative presence: the commitment to see others as people rather than as symbols or roles or projections of our own feelings.

Today you will encounter people who may be far away, or very different from you, your political opposite, or someone with a history of annoying or offending you. You will be temped to judge, categorize, or dehumanize them. Resist the temptation. Stay present. See them. Allow them to be real, whole people. Beneath their strangeness, politics, or annoying behavior, there is a heart with hurts and hopes, equal to yours and close to you. You are one in the Beloved. Love them. Even if they are your enemy, love them. More than all the political and economic reform in the world, seeing people as people and loving your enemies is the one thing that will actually change everything.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Silence

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.


In the face of the deep suffering of the world,
and the smallness of our powers—
silence.

In the shadow of our complicity
in the poverty and endangerment of millions—
silence.

Amidst the chatter of hearts that want solutions
and minds that want explanations—
silence.

In the embrace of a love stronger than gravity,
a presence thicker than earth—
silence.

On the solid ground of a hope beyond our knowing,
and sovereign, steadfast healing—
silence.

Unafraid to be here, even now,
and to have nothing to say but to give our hearts—
silence.

For the healing of those whose sorrow is beyond words,
stilled by the tenderness of us all—
silence.

In the strength of a love beyond speaking,
held in the gentle, wounded hands of God—
silence.

Broken-hearted and flowing with love,
powerless and confident—
silence.

Trusting now no less than on a day of triumph,
we dare to hold—for longer than a moment—
silence.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

An earhquake prayer

Enfolding Mystery,
when the earth quakes and the seas tremble
we become our smallness,
the eyes of our hearts are opened
and we fall into your arms.
Heart of our sorrow and source of our joy,
hold us in your stillness, your oneness, your love.
Enfold us gently in your presence,
and hold us all in one common suffering, one hope.
Divine Sufferer,
you who are the light that shines out of all darkness,
the love that rises out of all brokenness,
you enlarge as your people suffer.
Enlarge our hearts with yours.
Hold those who are bereaved; guide those who are lost.
Strengthen those who risk, who give and who serve
for the sake of healing.
And hold us who are tempted to distance ourselves
in the power of your compassion.
Christ, you who live among those who mourn,
shed your tears, lay your hands, shine with your rising.
Your Spirit move in us,
that we may bring healing, companionship and hope.
Your Spirit burn in us that we may give and serve,
that we may continually bear the light of compassion.
Eternal Lover,
receive our hearts, and with them love your children.
We give ourselves to you
for the sake of the healing of the world,
which alone is your desire.
Amen.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com

Delight

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



“You shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
— Isaiah 62.4


Two gods struggle for our hearts and minds.
One, of our own making, is distant and demanding.
He is here for his own sake,
He barges into Scripture and sets his wrath on the table.
And though he seems somehow unreal we tremble.
If we do not satisfy him, he throws us away,
and never comes back for us,
and says “I am doing this because I love you.”
But we are not fooled.
He is the shadow of our fear.

The other, beyond our imagining,
is madly in love with us, and inside us.
She sits quietly, mostly ignored, and plays music
on the strings of our bodies.
She is here for us. Her delight is in us.
She does not need for us to satisfy her,
or perform adequately, or meet some standard.
She simply wants to be with us.
She sings to us softly, from within, in dark places.
And we tremble.
We find this unsettling, so we edge away.
We act badly, to mask our powerlessness,
to cool her passion.
But she is not fooled. She is still in love.
And sooner or later, in this life or the next,
she will have you.

Why are we so afraid to fall into her arms?
Because she burns us up, until we become pure delight.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Violin

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



A brute picks up a Stradivarius and makes awful sounds.
A maestro takes a cheap fiddle in skilled, loving hands
and creates sublime music.
Who is surprised?

Who is it who plays the instrument of your life?
Who gets hold of you: your anger? Your fear?
The people you long to appease?
What will it sound like when the Beloved
lays her hands on you, tunes your strings,
draws the bow of love across them?

Today, you choose who may only look,
and who takes you up, who gets to play you,
either in the parlor, or in the street.
You do not matter. Only who plays you.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Water into wine

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Bottle up all your life.
Go ahead: every day, past and future:
all the great accomplishments and failures,
the elegant leaps and pratfalls, the love
you've left behind, the undiscovered miracles,
the little kindnesses, impossible to measure,
the things you've said (you've forgotten them),
words of comfort or wisdom, the lousy jokes,
the days spent doing chores, letters you wrote
and didn't write, nights lying awake,
years spent longing for brilliance,
moments staring at the sea, acts of courage,
all the little trips down the sidewalk to the mailbox,
the people you've touched (don't bother counting,
you can't even know. Just pour them in)—
and all that is to come: the speeches and silences,
the gallant deeds and silly stunts,
all of your prayers and their shallowness
and unfathomable grace, your quiet glowing,
how you will grow old, the way you will walk
when you are eighty-five, the things you will say
to those much younger than yourself.
Oh, and your death, your dwindling down,
your last surrendering, and what you leave,
breath seeping out of you like light...
Take it all and bottle it up and put it on the shelf
and forget it for a long time.
When you remember again, uncork it and see
if that water hasn't been changed to finest wine.

Don't ask me how,
but it happens every time.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com

Baptism

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
— Luke 3.21-22

Out of the desert, the chapped land, the scrub and scumble,
you come to a calm river, deep and green,
where the Beloved invites you in. You enter the water,
and you are immersed in this Presence
that holds every inch of your body.
You and the Beloved are inside each other.
A voice says, “I love you. I am with you. You are mine.”

You rise from the water, but it clings to you.
You drip with it all day long, soaked in the presence,
immersed in the promise: “I love you. I am with you.
You are mine.”

This is all you need to know, all you need to believe.
When you are in danger, or alone,
when another is in danger, or alone, let this guide you.
All doctrine, all goodness, all justice, all righteousness
flow from this fountain, flow to this sea.

When you drink, or bathe, when you cross the river,
when you weep or walk through rain, remember.
Even now as you read this, you are suspended
in deep, green, life-giving water. Held. Blessed.
A dove lights on your shoulder.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight (at)hotmail.com

The day after

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Last night we packed up the decorations.
The ornaments went back in their boxes,
the angels put away their instruments
and returned to their tissue paper heaven,
the shepherds returned to their fields
in plastic tubs in the basement, the wise men
returned to their faraway cardboard palaces,
the holy family saddled up the donkey
and left Bethlehem—the rumor is for Egypt,
and that there will be trouble in town.
It is the same, I know, in your house.

So now if there is to be angelic music
it will have to be hidden in your voice.
If there is to be good news of love made flesh
it will have to be in your hands.
If there is to be light in the darkness,
the small twinkling light of a star
that leads someone to love,
the quiet steady candle of presence,
it will have to be in your eyes.
If there is a child who is born the Prince of Peace
look within,
rejoice,
and return to your fields.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright © 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com

Epiphany Day

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star at its rising and have come to worship him."

— Matthew 2.1

Epiphany. Mysterious strangers follow a star to Jesus,
strangers from another country, culture, religion.
They follow a small twinkling light among millions.
They ask among people who pose danger.
They travel far, by unknown roads.
And with joy they follow that star, for that child.
They give their gifts gratefully.
And going home by yet another route,
they shine for us, little lights in the dark mystery:
those who follow unceasingly.

The star was not an idea, not even a religion.
It was the light of God's love enfleshed.
It was God's love for them.
What light do you follow?
How closely do you seek your Beloved?
How easily do you forget the journey you're on?
What gifts do you bring?
And with abandon, do you give them?

The child you seek is your Divine Lover.
How steadfastly do you follow the star of your belovedness?


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

On the twelfth day of Christmas

Dearly Beloved,


Grace and Peace to you.


Happy twelfth day of Christmas. Twelve drummers drumming and all that.


It is clear by now that what we celebrate in the twelve days of Christmas is not what the rest of the world has in mind. (I hear they're producing a new version of “A Charlie Brown's Christmas” in which they've deleted the scene where Linus tells the Christmas story.) Sure enough, for some it is merely a time for buying and getting stuff, and going to school concerts and gaudily decorated office parties. For others it may a time of love and giving. Even for most Christians it's Jesus' birthday, but not much different from other ones, except that we get the presents.


But what if it's about Incarnation, about Christ being born in us, and therefore about being transformed? Well, that takes time. Twelve days is a good beginning. (A twelve day old baby is really just the beginning!)


What does Christmas mean to you? What does it mean in you? Are you ready to bear Christ into the world in your own new life? What will you do to care for that new life? How will you live now that is different from the way you used to? May the “reason for the season” last longer than twelve days with you.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________

Copyright c 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I know it sounds late. But it's still actually Christmas— the 11th day. But on any day, why not wake up with the same expectation as on December 25th? Why not believe that wonderful gifts await you on this very day? The Beloved comes to you disguised as this day and says, “Unwrap me!”

On New Year's Eve you partied wildly and said goodbye to the past, and turned and welcomed the future with hope and joy. For a moment you wondered about the unknown. Why not do that every day? Will you miss this day, not bothering to look, because you thought you'd been here before? Every days is a new year's day. Every moment is a radical opening. Why not welcome it wildly?

Today—whatever day it is, a merry one to you! Open your presents! Happy New Year! Light your sparkler of hope!



_____________________


Weather Report


Newness
today and tomorrow,
with prevailing conditions of
the present moment,
and increasing chances of surprise.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Copyright © 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Happy new year

.

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



A divine spark glimmers in you. Something is being born, brought to life. Something is changing.

In this new year what do you need to give yourself permission to do?

Grant it, and have a happy new year.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________
Receive these daily at:
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com